Disclaimer: All characters and settings belong to Bethesda.
Project Wanderer
Chapter Ten: Into Each Life Some Rain Must Fall
Target locked on. Leather-gloved finger squeezed the trigger on the laser rifle. The last machinegun turret exploded without detecting him. X6-88 lowered his weapon and surveyed the scene. The rooftop of Fort Hagen was cleared, all done without even breaking a sweat.
X6-88 was getting bored. The outside defense in this military compound provided little to no challenge. Too many dead angles, too little firepower. A contact killer like Kellogg should have known better. But then, X6-88 didn't expect much from the surface dwellers, Kellogg included. The mercenary was just a tool, an effective one for many years. And like any other tools, sooner or later they would outlive their usefulness.
It would seem the clock was ticking for the Institute's favorite dirty weapon. But this time, the person chosen for disposal assignment wasn't a courser. Not even a synth. And she was fast approaching.
Leaning against the ledge, he spotted his target three blocks down. A woman who looked out of place in this Wasteland. A civilian, cleaner than the rest of the surface dwellers. If she's dressed in a white jumpsuit, X6-88 could have mistaken her as someone from the Institute – someone who was untouched by the radiation, someone who was in perfect health.
He hadn't been briefed on her identity. It didn't matter to him, whoever this woman was. If Father deemed her important enough to be protected, that's all he needed to know. Father always had a plan.
As always, Father's plan worked. The woman had followed the clues and found this place. She was not alone, though. With her came two men, a synth, a robot, and a dog. X6-88 paid no attention to any of them; they were all expendable. His mission was to observe his target, and protect if necessary.
It was a simple assignment, with only one strict condition: He had to remain undetected. It served him just fine, for the least interaction with surface dwellers, the better. He hated everything about the Commonwealth. The sun, the rain, the smell, the filth. And the people.
He especially hated the rain. And it was starting to drizzle.
X6-88 glared at the sky as if to threaten it to stop raining. The filthy Commonwealth only got even more dirty when it's wet. He couldn't wait to relay back to the Institute for a hot shower to sanitize himself. No, two hot showers, after running through the standard decontamination chamber.
Still, if the Institute needed him to be on the surface for surveillance, he would stoically suffer the discomfort. It was a small price to pay for the greater good.
Two blocks down, the dog led his target closer and closer to her destination. There was one last thing to do before she entered the fort. Second part of the preventive measure.
X6-88 opened a hatch on the roof, leaped into the hole, and landed into a storage room. For a second, he remained crouched and perfectly still, as he listened to the footsteps outside the storage. Multiple units were on patrol within the fort. No doubt the team was ordered to shoot on sight. No matter, though. X6-88 rose to his full height and strolled out of the room without a hint of fear. He was a courser. Even an ancient inferior Gen-1 unit knew better than to shoot at the Institute's elite agent.
He took five steps before a unit nearby sensed him.
"Motions detected," said the unit.
Unacceptable, X6-88 scowled. If he wanted, that unit would be a pile of useless metal by now. Someone at the Robotics was obviously sleeping on the job. He made a mental note to file a report later.
"Scanning. Subject identified. Courser. Unit X6-88."
Took you long enough. "Mission override," said X6-88. "Authorization code Beta 89-1701 Epsilon."
"Code accepted. Await for new instructions."
"Where is Kellogg?"
"In the basement."
"Are there any units with him?"
"None. All units are currently on patrol."
"All units, retreat."
"Understood."
And now, he waited.
Deacon felt like he had a giant red target painted on his back.
He hated the daylight, and he hated being out in the open. Now, he was doing both. His hands itched to reach for the Stealth Boy attached on his belt. All he needed to do was to flip a switch and press a button, then he'd be a ghost.
But stealth was no longer an option when he was traveling with a group, especially when one of his companions had a propulsion engine that hummed nonstop.
His four-legged companion stopped at the crossroad and sniffed the cracked pavement. The dog picked up a scent and bolted straight down the road. They followed without question, as they had been for since they'd left Diamond City.
Most people would only focus on the road in front of them, they would usually ignore things above their eye level. But not Deacon.
It was a force of habit, a reason why he had survived this long. His eyes never stopped moving, taking in every detail of his surroundings. After all, the bird perched on the lamppost could be a Watcher, the open window in the building across the street could be have a sniper rifle aiming right at his head.
And because of his habit, the first thing Deacon noticed was smoke coming from the rooftop of the building in front. When there's smoke, there's fire. And fire was usually started by people, which could only mean that they were not alone...
Raiders? Gunners? No, the outside of building wasn't decorated by either blood or an ugly painting of a white skull. Neither group had marked their territory.
Before Deacon could reach a conclusion, a series of loud barks interrupted his thoughts. Dogmeat dashed to said building, stopped in front of the boarded up entrance, then stood on his hind legs, and clawed at the wood boards that had sealed the doors.
So, it was neither the Gunners nor the raiders, but the boogeyman himself.
"That nose of his would put you out of business, Nick," said Deacon to Valentine, who was not at all offended.
"You sure he's inside, boy?" asked the detective.
Dogmeat barked once, baring his fangs with a growl. For once, the dog looked appropriately like a vicious killing machine.
"Unless you know how to walk through a piece of solid wood," said MacCready, nodding at the barricaded entrance, "we need to find another way to get inside."
"Fort Hagen..." Nora muttered, looking at the sign outside the building. "I came here to pick up Nate a few times before. There's an entrance in the garage."
"Well, what are we waiting for?" said MacCready. "Let's go get your boy back."
"All right, buddy," Deacon asked the dog, "which way?"
There was a door at the opposite end, and a stairway on the left. Dogmeat sniffed and headed to the closed door.
"Wait up," said Deacon. "Let me take a look first."
He checked for traps, then slowly opened the door. What lied behind was a dark, long hallway, with lights at the end of the tunnel. And... was that a destroyed machinegun turret?
He then spotted a tiny device hidden behind a conveniently placed cart.
"The laser wire trap's been disarmed. We're not alone," Deacon told the rest of the group as they headed down the hallway. "See that smoking turret at the far end? It was blown up recently."
"Maybe someone else is going after Kellogg," said MacCready, his sniper rifle never left his hands. The kid might be young, but he's seasoned, Deacon noticed.
"I wouldn't be surprised," said Valentine. "The old merc has more enemies that all of our fingers combined."
"But if someone has stormed the fort, where's the dead body?" Deacon frowned, perplexed. "That tricky son of a bitch has a team of chrome domes working for him. There should be blood or... screws and bolts."
"Chrome domes?" asked MacCready.
"Gen-1 Synths," Deacon explained. "Those walking metal skeletons."
"Ah. Those human-looking robots creep the heck outta me." The young merc quickly turned to the synth detective. "No offense."
"None taken," said Valentine.
Dogmeat picked up the scent along the path and stopped at the top of the stairwell that led further into the basement.
"Stay behind me, buddy," Deacon told the dog. "You might trip over some wires."
Deacon pressed against the wall as he moved soundlessly down the long flight of stairs. He didn't have to be Dogmeat to pick up the burning smell in the air, and the smell became stronger the further down he went. Upon reaching the landing, Deacon peeked around the corner and saw where the smoke was coming from. Another broken turret, recently destroyed.
Behind the broken turret was a security gate. A rather complicated trap on the gate had been disarmed by the previous intruder. Skills like that was not exactly easily to come by in the Wasteland. Whoever did this was a professional.
Under normal circumstances, Deacon would gladly stand back and let them kill themselves. But he also knew one thing: Dead man can't talk.
They'd better hurry.
"To think young Shaun has been taken to a filthy place like this," said Codsworth. "Oh, that poor child..."
"You're not helping there, Codsworth," said MacCready.
"Ah! My apologies, Miss Nora," said the Mr. Handy.
"...It's okay, Cods," Nora finally broke her silence for the sake of her loyal robot.
The basement was cold. Nora shivered, not just because of the chill, but because of the thought that her baby was here, in this cold, hard place with his kidnapper. With the man who had murdered his father.
Sydney led the way further down into the basement. The man had never taken his sunglasses off for even a second, by now, Nora was used to it. The endless flight of stairs brought them to a fireproof door at the end. Sydney once again checked the gap before he pushed the door open. Behind it was a long hallway with a series of machines lining the wall to her right, and a panel of windows looking into a pitch dark room to her left.
Had Nate ever been down here before?
"Now, if it isn't my old friend, the frozen TV dinner," said a gruff voice through the speakers. The same voice form her nightmare. "Last time we met, you were cozying up to the peas and apple cobbler."
"It's him!" said Nora to Valentine. "I recognize the voice! The man who killed my husband and took Shaun!"
Kellogg suddenly laughed. "So that's why my synths are all gone. The old man wants me dead. And he wants you to kill me. Is this what he considers poetic justice?"
The old man?
"Look. You're pissed off," Kellogg continued through the speaker. "I get it. I do. But whatever you hope to accomplish in here, it is not going to go your way. Before we try to kill each other, let's talk."
Inside the dark room to the left, lights flickered and came on, one by one. Through the wired window, Nora saw rolls upon rolls of computers and consoles forming a grid within. This had to be the command center of the fort. A heavy metal door to the command center suddenly swung open by itself, giving her a silent invitation in.
"This is a perfect place for an ambush," MacCready warned.
"Try not to be trigger-happy," said Nick. "Shaun might be in there."
The detective stepped through the door first, Nora followed closely behind. Everything was still and quiet, until she heard a squeaky noise of a rusty door open at the far end of the command center.
"You've got guts and determination," a voice echoed from afar as a figure emerged from the adjacent room, "and that's admirable."
Nora saw him. The same bald man who had kidnapped her son and killed her husband. The same scarred face that had haunted her since she'd regained consciousness. "You!"
Next to her, the detective snarled, "Kellogg..."
"You came a long way," said Kellogg as he casually strolled through the maze of computers. "But you are in over your head in ways you can't possibly comprehend. If you're hoping for a happy reunion? Ain't gonna happen, lady."
"Where's my son?" Nora demanded. "Where is Shaun?"
"Your boy's not here. He's with the people pulling the strings."
"What? Goddamn it! Where is my son?!"
The old merc merely shrugged. "What's the cliché? 'So close, but yet so far away?' That's Shaun. But don't worry. He's safe, and happy. He's doing great. A bit older than you may have expected, but... ah well. At least he's in a loving home."
Home?
Kellogg looked right at her with a smirk. "The Institute."
"Take me to him!" Nora raised her pistol to the kidnapper's face. "Wherever this 'Institute' is. Take me to him! Now!"
"Take you to him?" Kellogg ignored the gun and chuckled. "Like I could, even if I wanted to."
"Don't make me repeat myself." Nora stepped forth with each word until she reached the kidnapper and jabbed her gun onto his chest. "Take. Me. To. My son! Right. NOW!"
As much as she wanted to pull the trigger, Nora couldn't. Not when the bastard was the one holding all the information. And Kellogg seemed to be perfectly aware of that.
"That's the spirit!" The mercenary laughed. "You know, you surprise me, I have to admit, I find myself actually kind of... liking you. I admire your dedication to motherhood. Even if it is ultimately useless." Kellogg let out a quiet sigh and once again looked straight into her eyes. "Let him go. Your son is exactly where he belongs."
His words made her hair stand on end. "...What the hell do you mean?"
"Your son... He's lived his entire life in the Institute. If you're expecting him to come up and live in this shithole with you, you're in for a disappointment."
"You're lying!" No. No... It can't be. But if Shaun's that ten year old boy in Diamond City...
"Or maybe I'm telling you the truth, and the truth isn't want you're ready to hear. But, enough talk." The merc looked at the gun barrel on his chest, no doubt noticing her shaky hands. "We both know how this has to end. So... you ready?"
Out of nowhere came a hard blow on the side of her head, knocking Nora on the ground. Everything turned dark. For a moment, she couldn't move, she couldn't see, all she could hear was gunshots.
Get up! Damn it, get up!
Nora then felt a hand on her, pulling her to the side. As she regained her sight, she saw a pair of familiar sunglasses.
"Listen carefully," said Sydney very quickly over the sounds of gunfire. "I'm gonna pop the Stealth Boy on you, you have thirty seconds. Sneak behind Kellogg and shoot him with this." He pressed a weird looking gun in her hands. "We can't kill him just yet."
Then, Nora heard MacCready yell, "What the- Where'd he go?"
"Disappear, eh?" said Codsworth. "Come on out and fight like a man!"
"Find him, boy," said Nick to the dog. "Don't let our perp get away!"
Nora struggled back on her feet, but Sydney put a hand on her shoulder to press her down behind a desk, barely in time to avoid a grenade explosion nearby.
Her ears rang from the loud noise.
Hurdling closer behind cover, Sydney continued with his instructions rapidly, "The bastard's using Stealth Boy. Dogmeat will sniff him out. Follow the dog. His Stealth Boy will run dry before yours. When he shows his face, aim for his neck."
He reached for the device attached on her belt and activated it. A second later, Sydney suddenly disappeared in front of her eyes.
"Now, go!" Sydney urged, although she couldn't see him. "We'll cover you!"
Laying low to avoid flying bullets, Nora navigated around the maze that was formed by the computer desks.
Twenty five seconds.
She heard Dogmeat barking, growling. She saw the dog jumping in the air, attacking an invisible enemy.
"Found him!" said Valentine, shooting at the air above the dog.
Fifteen seconds.
Dogmeat whined and backed down as a bullet grazed his front leg.
"Oh no you don't!" Codsworth charged with his flamethrower firing. "Don't you hurt our poor pup, you monster!"
The minor injury didn't stop the dog for long. Dogmeat once again leaped and bit onto an invisible arm. A second later, Kellogg materialized.
"There he is!" MacCready fired and shot the old merc's shoulder. He immediately lined up for a killshot, but was forced to take cover as Kellogg returned fire. "Shit-"
"We need him alive!" yelled Sydney.
Five seconds.
Still invisible, Nora was next to the man who kidnapped her son, close enough to blow his head off with her pistol. But she couldn't. She needed answered.
Raising the gun Sydney had given her moments prior, Nora aimed and fired. The old merc jolted and reached for his own neck, and turned to glare at the air next to him just as Nora's Stealth Boy expired.
"...You..." Kellogg muttered and pulled the syringe off his neck. Then, all of a sudden, his knees buckled and the old merc dropped onto the ground.
"Hold your fire!" warned Sydney, who was no longer invisible. "We got him!"
The man in sunglasses quickly picked up the mercenary's dropped weapon, then smashed the butt of the gun onto the side of Kellogg's head. "That's for hitting the lady."
"What the heck happened?" asked MacCready.
"Tranquilizer," said Sydney as he promptly pulled out a pair handcuffs and snapped them onto the Kellogg's wrists. "A dosage strong enough to put a brahmin to sleep. But it seems our boogeyman here has built up quite a resistant."
Drugged, the mercenary's half-opened eyes glanced around and landed on Nora. "...Should have put a bullet in you while you were on ice..."
MacCready jabbed the barrel of his sniper rifle hard into the old merc's ribs. "Shut up!"
"No. Do talk," said Sydney. His voice suddenly turned icy cold. "Where is the Institute?"
Although disarmed, tied up, and weakened by the drug, Kellogg still managed to laugh. "Don't you get it? You don't find the Institute. The Institute finds you. ...You open the closet, it's just a closet. You can never find the monster that hides inside. Not until it jumps out at you."
"I hate to sound so cliché, but... " Sydney reached for something in his pack and pulled out a syringe. "We could do it the easy way. Or the hard way."
The old merc snorted. "Ain't nothing I haven't seen."
"This?" Sydney waved the syringe and shrugged. "Homebrew. Heard it'd kill the nanobots in your blood." Almost too casually, he injected the content into Kellogg's neck as he leaned close and muttered, "That's for your handiwork at UP."
The mercenary grunted to suppress a scream.
"Look, pal," said Sydney. "I've looked every inch of the Commonwealth. And if there's an entrance to the Institute, I'd have already found it. So why don't you draw us a map and get it over with?"
"...Of course you couldn't find an entrance," said Kellogg. "Because there is none."
That didn't make any sense. "Then how the hell did Shaun get there?" asked Nora.
"Even if I were to tell you, there's no way you could get in."
"No more games!" Nora pulled out her pistol and pressed the barrel against the kidnapper's head. "Tell me!"
"Guess they don't pay me to keep their secrets anymore," Kellogg muttered to himself with a casual shrug as if he didn't care about the weapons point at him. Then he looked straight into her eyes and said, "Teleportation."
"Son of a bitch!" "What the f-" Nora heard her companions gasped, but words stuck at her throat.
Teleportation. The word she'd only read from novels or heard from movies, and now it was the key to get her son back.
The old merc chuckled. "Heh, lady, I'm just a puppet like you. My stage is a little bigger, that's all."
"What the hell are you talking about?"
Shaking his head in resignation, Kellogg continued, "Seems obvious now that we're bait for you. This whole set up in Diamond City was part of some elaborate plan of the old man's. Timing couldn't have been an accident. That's not how the old man works."
That was the second time he mentioned the old man. "Who is this old man?" asked Nora.
Somehow, Kellogg only stared at her for a few seconds, then broke into sudden fits of laughter.
"He's the man you're looking for," Kellogg told her once he'd caught his breath. "The director of the Institute. He is using you to tie up another loose ends. So, the question is: Are you gonna do his dirty work? Are you ready to pull the trigger?"
The pistol suddenly felt heavy in her hands, in her conscience. If she pulled the trigger, it would be a first-degree, premeditated murder, not in self-defense.
No, it would be for Nate. For Shaun. For tearing her family apart.
Her gun rose once again.
"Go ahead," urged Kellogg, almost as if he was challenging her.
If she pulled the trigger now, she would be just like this monster who had murdered Nate pointblank...
Sydney put a hand on hers to push her gun down.
"Oh, no. You're not gonna die so easily, pal," he told the merc. "We have a lot to talk about. Let's start with teleportation."
Kellogg eyed the man in sunglasses. "...You like classical music?"
Just then, a strange beam of light cut through the air, right in between Nora and Sydney, and hit Kellogg squarely on his chest. Startled, Nora jumped away. The old merc screamed, but there was no sound. His body glowed blinding bright for a split of a second before it suddenly disintegrated.
In the blink of an eye, Kellogg was gone. All that was left of him was a pile of burning ashes.
"Courser!" said Nick, pointing at the hallway outside the command center.
When Nora looked, all she could see was a shadow quickly retreating. MacCready leaped forth to pursue, Dogmeat followed at his heels.
Seconds later, Dogmeat's incessant barks echoed throughout the basement.
"What the- He disappeared," yelled MacCready from around the corner. "It's a dead end!"
"...Teleportation," Nick reasoned. "So Kellogg wasn't lying after all."
"Goddammit!" said Sydney. "We were so close..."
Nora could only stared at the pile of ashes that had been the man who had murdered her husband. The only person who held the key was dead. All hopes were gone.
The room around her started to spin.
"Hey..." Nora felt a comforting hand on her shoulder. It was Nick's. The detective told her gently, "I know the night just got darker. But it won't last forever."
Her son was still out there. She needed to pull herself together, she needed to use her brain. Think, Nora. Think! For Shaun. For Shaun... And then, she remembered. The document Kellogg had left behind. "There's still another person out there."
"Brian Virgil," said Sydney almost simultaneously.
"Who the heck is he now?" asked MacCready.
The man in sunglasses looked at the man in tattered duster. "Does the 250 include a trip to the Glowing Sea?"
A/N: Not what you might expect, because it doesn't make sense for someone to cut open a dead man's skull with no reasons, cut off a piece of his brain/implant, and carry it around without it starting to rot. Things will be different from the game canon, and you'll see more soon enough.
I've been writing "storm the dungeon with a team all gun blazing" battle scenes on and off for three years. I'll take a break from that type of actions in this story. Commander Shepard the Galaxy Savior gets her glorious battles and explosions, Nora the Lawyer and Deacon the Liar will use stealth and wits. [Glory Dislikes That]
The weird looking gun was the modified syringer Deacon got from Tinker Tom a few chapters ago.
Title: "Into Each Life Some Rain Must Fall" by Ella Fitzgerald and The Ink Spot, 1944.